—Story City, Iowa pop. 3,377
should be the name
of every city
every place with a door
every table.
Each time feet stand at the edge of a prairie.
Each time a hawk sits on a tangle of branches waiting
to bloom
or an eagle with wings tucked talons clinging
to a rock
in a spring river.
Story City should be the name
for everything awake. Whenever there is a song
and the smell of ashes.
… that ashes line at the end …